Manslayer
by Lady Salazar
Summary: The prophecy dictated that he'd be a killer in the end, and they knew that. But they didn't expect him to take it this far.


Disclaimer**** Not mine. If you think it is, get your head checked.

Summary__ The prophecy dictated that he'd bea killer in the end, and they knew that.But they didn't expect him to take it this far.

_**Manslayer**_

The first time Hermione ever imagined Harry a murderer - or at least, a potential murderer - wasn't when she heard the prophecy that declared he'd be one. She never imagined in her mind that he'd be the other, either… Harry could not be killed. He had survived too much. In her mind, if he could die he would have died years ago. He wasn't - so he couldn't. In her mind, Harry was immortal.

No.

The first time Hermione saw Harry's potential for killing was in sixth year. He'd insisted on learning all the spells and alternate brewing instructions in the potions book of the Half-Blood Prince, and that wasn't that bad, as much of cheating as it was. The thought only passed her mind when he'd been attacked by Draco Malfoy, and had defended himself using a spell learned out of the book - _Sectumsempra_.

"_But it's not fair Hermione!" Harry snapped, green eyes smoldering. "The Cruciatus is a one-way ticket to Azkaban, yet he doesn't even get detention! The Slashing Hex isn't illegal at all!"_

"_But you could have killed him, Harry!" Hermione protested._

"_Snape knew exactly what to do about it!" Harry snarled in reply. "Said he wouldn't even get a scar!"_

"_But it could've-"_

_Harry abruptly stood, shooting her a glare that made Snape's look like a child's. A shiver ran down Hermione's back. _

"_It doesn't matter what could have been," he said quietly, voice heavy with some unknown quality. "All that matters is what is."_

_And then he turned his back on her and walked out the portrait hole. _

* * *

The first time Remus realized the son of his best friends was a murderer in the making was the night of the death of Dumbledore. Everyone was fighting hard, trying to drive back the Death Eaters, only to have first their spy and then their savior come dashing down the steps on the tower above which the Dark Mark hovered.

Remus only had a fraction of a glance at Harry's face, but it chilled him to the bone. Smoky green eyes looked almost hazel, blazing with the fire of rage as he flew through the hall in pursuit of Severus Snape. Remus saw something else, he thought, but he denied it, pushing it back to the depths of his mind.

Sweet little Harry - Prongs Jr., Bambi, Pup - would never look at anyone with bloodlust, Remus decided, only to have that faith shaken barely an hour later.

_Harry had left the hospital wing not long prior, but a worried Remus had tracked him down to find him in back in the tower from which Dumbledore had fallen after his death at the hands of the traitor Snape. _

"_He's dead," he whispered to himself, tone strangely bland as he stared of into the distance. "He's dead."_

_Remus sighed. Dumbledore's death must have hit Harry hard; he knew the teenaged savior of wizardkind had looked up to the man. _

"_It's all right, Harry," the werewolf said gently. "Professor Dumbledore was a great man…. The wizarding world as a whole will mourn him greatly. Still, Harry, he wouldn't want you to blame yourself any more than Sirius would."_

_Harry turned slightly, just enough for Remus to see a bit of his face but not enough to determine an expression. _

"_Dumbledore, Professor?" he said, tone still bland. The he turned completely to face his former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. "It was not to Dumbledore that I referred."_

_Remus blinked in surprise. Who else could he be referring to? "Then who?"_

_Harry turned back around to face the night. "It was to Snape."_

"_Snape isn't dead, Harry." _

_Harry shook his head slowly, and a sigh escaped his lips. "I know. But he will be." _

_Remus didn't really know how to reply. Harry saved him the trouble._

"_Go," he said softly. "Let me be alone. I wish to think."_

* * *

The first time Harry proved to Ron that the green-eyed teen would kill, the redhead nearly pissed himself. The Horcruxes had proven elusive - they had managed to find the locket of Salazar Slytherin and learned that the piece of soul it contained had been destroyed, but that was all.

They'd been searching for over a year. It was almost ironic that when Sod's Law had decided to rear it's ugly head, when it was the three of them versus fifty Death Eaters, that the event that would bring the world to chaos and back took place.

_Ron was fighting back-to-back with Hermione, and Harry was nowhere to be seen. Surrounded by Death Eaters, it was a wonder they had lasted half so long, and they could hear the taunting as every Death eater taken down was somehow revived by their comrades. Ron had at last resorted to spells like Reducto and Sectumsempra, but Hermione would have nothing of it, and the redhead was running out of steam. _

"_Well well," a voice intervened. "What have we here?"_

_Thirty-nine heads snapped up to see a black-robed and hooded figure. The remaining nine lay prone on the ground, courtesy of Ron's desperation. _

"_Fifty against two and losing," said the figure, tone unfeeling. "Pathetic." _

_Walking at a sedate pace, the interloper hardly seemed to dodge the spells cast at him by the Death Eaters; the jets of light seemed to dodge him instead. Five foot from the first Death Eater he came to, he slipped a hand in his robe. _

_What he brought out was no wand. It was, of all things, a katana. A katana infused with magic, if the aura spreading from the blade to surround the wielder was any indication. The Death Eaters, heretofore tense, relaxed, and some had the stupidity to laugh. _

_The robed figure chuckled lightly in reply to their mirth. "Let's dance, shall we?"_

_The next thirty seconds were nothing short of a bloodbath. The thirty-seven Death Eaters were sliced to bits by the katana of the interloper. _

_Hermione vomited at the sight of the Death Eaters, dead or nearly so on the ground. Ron himself barely kept from doing so as well. _

"_Who… who are you?" Hermione whimpered. Ron looked up._

_The figure swept off his hood. Black hair and green eyes mixed with bright amber met those of the two he had saved._

"_Harry?" Distraught and sickened, Hermione chose that moment to faint. Ron caught her, and holding her close, silently questioned his friend._

_The hazel eyes softened just a bit, while the expertly bland expression did not change at all. "I'm going on alone," said Harry quietly. "Go back to Hogwarts, train, keep your head down, and forget about me."_

_Ron's eyes widened. "B-but!"_

_Harry gestured at the motionless bodies of the Death Eaters. "This is only the beginning, Ron," he said. "By the time I return - by the time this is finished - I will not be Harry Potter, your friend. It is best for you, and for Hermione, and for Ginny, and for everyone else, to forget about me."_

"_But…" Ron did not want to lose his riend. He wanted to follow him still, but knew he couldn't._

_Harry turned away, ghost of a sad smile on his lips. "Goodbye." _

* * *

Even ten years after Harry had vanished without a trace and threw the wizarding world into anarchy, even faced with the bodies of countless Death Eaters brutally slaughtered by the blade they knew only one wizard wielded, Ginny did not believe her Harry could be a murderer. Ron and Hermione tried to convince her, tried to tell her to let him go (not that they had), but the fact remained crystal clear in her mind.

Her Harry was a hero. Not a butcher.

But the broken, sobbing, _infuriated _and _betrayed _mess that was Ginny Weasley was being forced to realize one unpleasant fact: her Harry didn't exist anymore.

"Well, hello, Tom. It has been a while."

The ethereal figure standing on the step leading up to the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts was like no person Ginny had ever seen. He stood at nearly six feet and his ebony hair spilled down nearly to his waist like a waterfall; his skin was like porcelain, his eyes were honeyed amber with swirls of brilliant green, and his robe was burning scarlet - or most of it at least. His infamous katana was sheathed at his side, hanging innocently.

He was beautiful. A demon in the guise of an angel.

Voldemort gazed at him thoughtfully through crimson eyes. "Who would have thought," said the dark lord as though to himself, "that Harry Potter would be the hunter… he who slaughters mercilessly. Now would generally be the time to offer you a place at my side. Unfortunately, one with such power as yourself can hardly be trusted."

The horde of Death Eaters and dark creatures at Voldemort's back shifted nervously. Here was the man who had single-handedly killed as many as the Dark Lord's forces as they had others. Here was someone Voldemort himself saw as too much of a threat to be trusted to serve.

On the other side, those who fought on the side of the light were hardly any better off. The one they had seen as their savior had returned - as a terror rivaled only by Voldemort himself. He fought for the right ideals, but how he did so….

This demon in angel's guise was as much of a monster as the one he fought.

Voldemort motioned for a certain faction of Death Eaters to engage the sword-wielder. Apparently he had been prepared for an appearance by the Boy Who Lived, because thirty black-robes minions unsheathed their swords and charged him.

No one saw him move.

One second the man formerly Harry was standing on the steps with his guard down. The next, four Death Eaters lay on the ground dead. The entirety of the group was slaughtered in seconds.

"How insulting," said Harry tonelessly, lip curling just a tiny bit. "Have you none better?" He bowed his head and shook it slowly, ebony hair falling in front of his face. He pushed it back patiently, and upon looking up, the more observant saw the green in his eyes was receding.

He raised his katana, lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. And the massacre began.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, it was over. The aftermath? An army of butchered men drowning in their own blood on one side, only seventeen dead on the other.

Unbothered, Harry reached for a spot of pink on his mostly scarlet robe, and with the blood collected on his katana dyed it darker to blend with the rest.

Ron, Hermione, Ginny and scores of others he had known watched his little ritual with wide eyes, recognizing what the now fully scarlet robe meant. It was a marker of how blood he had shed.

The expressions on the faces of many of the people he had left behind meant they did not appreciate they necessity of his actions. Ron looked sad but seemed to understand; Hermione looked ill and unbelieving, and Ginny was glaring at him, eyes shining with hatred and betrayal.

"You said when you returned, that you would not be the Harry Potter who was our friend," Ron murmured.

The man who was once Harry Potter said nothing. Then, "That is true, that is."

"You're not my Harry at all," Ginny broke in, snarling. "You're a monster!"

The sword-wielder chuckled softly. His glinting amber eyes bore into the redhead's brown ones. "I am what was meant to be by prophecy," he whispered, the statement carrying despite the low volume. "But perhaps too much to be considered as such."

Hermione spoke up, trembling horribly. "Then what… _do _you consider yourself?"

The amber gaze traveled to the slaughter its owner had brought into being. A flicker of satisfaction lit in the emotionless orbs as the man studied the carnage he was responsible for. Harry paused before formulating his reply, pondering his answer. Then he returned the gaze to his former friends, lips curved slightly.

"I was always partial to manslayer," he whispered.

* * *

This is what happens when a Harry Potter fanfiction writer gets fangirly over the Hitokiri Battousai from Rurouni Kenshin.

I'm hopeless I know. But please review.


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